The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-12-20


To the Editor Of the Indianapolis Journal
More superficial swell-head nonsense has
been written and published about the tariff
than anything else. No other subject has been
so belabored with sophistry and misrepresenta-
ton. The tariff has been stigmatized tax
or fine by writers of free trade fallacies. who
imagine that opprobrious epithets are more eff
fective weapons than indubitable facts and good
reasons. It has been asserted time and again
that the direct tendency of tariff is to increase
the price of manufactured goods to the con-
sumner or last purchaser, in face of the we'll
known fact that the prices of nearly all kinds OF
such manufactured goods have steadily declined
for the last twenty years. notwithstanding the
existence of high tariff during all that time.
Tariff thinkers and free-trade apostles are very
much prone to ignore the industrial history of
the country in their insane efforts to secure q
sweeping reduction of the revenues derived
from that source. They say there is too much
money piling up in the United States treasury
at Washington. AS well might man complain
of his bank account increasing too rapidly, and
the balance in his favor on the banks books
showing too much prosperity in his business.
What is good fnanciering for an individual GER
tainly must be just as good in proportion for a
great and mighty nation. Cash IN hand is as
good for tho government it is for the farmer,
the mechanic, the merchant or the manufac-
turer.
If the revenues of the government are accu-
mulating too rapidly, the surplus can be readily
reduced without cutting down the tariff and
offering its emoluments as premium to propi-
tate the good graces of foreign manufacturers,
who anxious to sell us their goods that
they willing to pay the tariff fees for the
privilege of SO doing. If it we're not profitable
&c them they would not ship us their goods, but
would seek other markets. If at the present
tariff rates they ship their goods, pay the
tariff thereon, and still make a good profit. sell
ing their goods in competition with cur home
made goods, il not th at proof of itself that the
inducements for foreign trade are already s1fi-
GENTLY remunerativea We do not want to
change our policy SO much as to let down the
bars altogether, that they may food the
country with their pauper-labor products and
undersell our own manufacturers, who pay their
employees the best wages in the world. If any
line of home-manufactured goods are not cheap
people to engage in manufacturing them, and
thereby reduce the price by means of home COM
petition
There are doubtless some things in the list of
schedule that should be placed the free list
although our free list of imports not liable to
900 annually, about two-sevenths of all the
imports in amount This list, free of duty,
could be increased to one-third or the total i'm
ports, and that is about far as it would be
prudent TO go in extending the free list. Some
articles of raw material not produced in
country could be added to this list.
There some articles in the tariff schedule
the rates on which might be reduced. The ex-
tent of this reduction could only be determined
by careful revision of the whole list, which
could only be done by thorough business like
rhapsodies Of revenue reduction by means of
free-trade faliacies, periodically promulgated on
the eve OF presidential campaign
Every time in the history of this country
when the advocates of free trade got the power
and succeeded in reducing the tariff to q low ba-
sis, or approximation to free trade, it was soon